


dans chaque fin

by ScatteredWords



Category: Carmilla (Web Series)
Genre: F/F, movie spoilers ahoy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-30
Updated: 2017-10-30
Packaged: 2019-01-26 20:05:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,702
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12565156
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ScatteredWords/pseuds/ScatteredWords
Summary: "...il y a un debut." In every end, there is a beginning. On the day Laura makes a terrifying decision, she and Carmilla discuss the past, the present, and the nature of square one.





	dans chaque fin

**Author's Note:**

> I guess this is kind of a companion piece to Picking Up The Pieces, in a way? Each is something I imagined for Hollstein after what I thought was the end of the story. Anyway, I wrote this on a very long bus trip to New York City when I had a notebook, a pen, and no wifi to speak of. Enjoy!

Early winter sunlight slanted across the kitchen, staining the cream-colored granite countertop a buttery yellow. It was one of those early November evenings where everything, from half-dead jade plant to dusty French press, was turned for a fleeting hour into a golden idyll. The scene might have passed for a Georgian pastoral painting, if the English countryside had been composed of bio-engineered plants that grew kitchens in modern Toronto.

And if the painters of the 18th century had known about TARDIS mugs.

Only the ticking of an ornate mahogany mantle clock perched on a corner shelf broke the silence. The sinuous, ornate Art Nouveau timepiece looked so out of place in the pale, minimalist room that it almost doubled back around to fitting in in some strange hipster-chic way. All in all, a visitor might call it a fairly ordinary kitchen. Until the front door swung open, slamming into the wall, and then banged shut.

A petite young woman with disheveled brown hair a wild look in her eyes strode into the room, ruining its picturesque perfection by flinging her bulging messenger bag onto one of the tall red stools clustered around the island. Muttering to herself, she raked a hand through her hair. It trailed down her neck and stopped where it met a cheap, synthetic cord the sickly teal of a Blue Screen of Death. She stared down at the rectangular plastic pendant where it rested against her giraffe-printed cardigan. Then, almost as if the lanyard had caught fire, she yanked it over her head and threw it onto the counter. Her breathing was quick and ragged as she stared at it, eyes wide.

From the hall that led further into the apartment, the sound of a light footstep brought her back to Earth. She turned to face the girl who now stood in the doorway, the dark curls around her shoulders still tousled from sleep and an expression on her face as if her girlfriend had gone insane.

“Morning,” Carmilla said cautiously.

“It’s three PM,” Laura replied. A note of genuine amusement crept into her tense voice.

“Yeah,” Carmilla yawned, rubbing at one eye and frowning when her knuckles came away stained black with forgotten liquid liner. “Shouldn’t you be in the middle of an eighteen-hour workday right about now?” She blinked. "Huh. Deja vu all over again. Who's gone missing this time, and should I hide the duct tape and garlic?"

Laura looked as if she might cry. But then- she giggled. Then chuckled. Full-blown guffaws were soon pouring out of her with no end in sight. Between gales of laughter, she gasped for breath and clutched a stitch in her side.

“I…quit,” she managed to get out. “Told…Phillippe…bite me.”

Carmilla’s eyebrows shot up. “No way.”

“Way. Very way.” Laura scooped up the discarded lanyard and held it out, looking pointedly in the opposite direction from the innocuous square of plastic.

When the card at last swung to a halt, Carmilla examined it. ~~LAUREL HOLLY~~ ~~LAUREN HELISE~~ LAURA HOLLIS, it read above a picture of what appeared to be Laura mid-sneeze. LOCAL NEWS. And across the slick surface, a sticker that said only VOID in large red letters.

“Whoa. Congrats, cupcake,” Carmilla said. “I was wondering when you’d tell those incompetents to shove it up their asses.” She moved to take the press pass, but Laura gripped the cheap lanyard so hard her knuckles turned white.

“No. No no no no. This is not ‘congrats’ news,” she said shakily. “What about my goals? My dreams? My five-year plan?” Another burst of hysterical laughter bubbled out of her. “Or rent? Or groceries? What about-”

“Laura. Hey.” Carmilla’s hands pressed firmly on her shoulders, one thumb stroking her collarbone. “You have a multimillionaire live-in girlfriend. If anyone in this city can make rent, it’s you.”

Laura sniffled slightly, but nodded.

“As for the rest…” Carmilla paused to lift Laura’s chin with one hand. Their eyes met. “You are going to be an amazing journalist,” she said slowly. “And those louts at that rag you just ditched will watch you accept your Pulitzer and be sorry they ever spelled your name wrong.”

“Although,” she continued, easing the lanyard from Laura’s hand, “Helise kind of has a ring to it.”

Laura let out a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding. She dropped onto a stool and absently smoothed her purple pencil skirt over her knees.

“And to think I imagined working there forever.” She glanced up at Carmilla, who had padded over to the fridge and was now cracking a bottle of synthetic O+. “Speaking of forever…” she said quietly. “How are you doing?”

Carmilla stared down the mouth of the bottle, watching the thick red liquid swish as she tilted it from side to side. “Pretty much the same as I did from 1698 to 2015.”

“Oh.”

The moment stretched well beyond the point of awkwardness. A driver laid on their horn outside; a baby began to wail from the flat below. The problems Laura had expected, since before the lease and the kitchen and the neglected jade plant, to be her own. That was life, wasn’t it? You slayed monsters and you thwarted doomsday and you went home to a quiet, ordinary happily-ever-after. But now-

“Relieved.”

The single word brought Laura’s runaway train of thought to a screeching halt. “What?”

“In some sick way.” Carmilla moved to stand before the window, fading yellow light turning her brown eyes amber. “I’d wake up to you ever morning dreading, knowing it couldn’t last. And now…” she laughed joylessly. “…no more waiting. No more panic every time I couldn’t sleep or bit my lip and didn’t mind the taste. There’s a certain freedom when the worst has already happened."

Laura slipped off the stool and walked across the room, resting a hand lightly on Carmilla’s arm. Carmilla glanced over without seeming to really see her.

“It’s easy. Too easy. I’m too good at being this-” she raised her bottle of blood “-and too bad at being human.”

“Hey, no,” Laura said quickly. She stepped in front of her girlfriend so Carmilla was forced to look her in the eye. “You were a great human. I promise. You were…”

As she struggled for words, Carmilla raised an eyebrow. Taking another swig of fake blood, she said, “Thanks, sweetheart. But it hardly matters now.”

She was halfway to the tall, chrome recycling bin when a voice behind her, quiet as a prayer, said, “You were you.”

“You know,” she said lightly, toying with Laura’s discarded press pass, “these things really ought to be harder to fake.”

“You were you,” Laura repeated more confidently, ignoring Carmilla's attempt to change the subject. “You ARE you.”

Carmilla stared at the now-void badge until a small hand grabbed her own. She looked up to see Laura staring at her, a familiar fire in her eyes.

“You’re you, and vampire or human, it’s you I fell in love with,” Laura said tenderly. Pushing a stray lock of hair behind Carmilla’s ear, she continued, “You saved those girls from an eternal nightmare because you believed they deserved better.”

In spite of herself, Carmilla felt the corners of her lips turn up slightly. “I guess you’re rubbing off on me, Hollis.”

Laura raised her hands in mock defeat. “I know, I know- no heroic vampire crap.”

“Well, maybe for you,” Carmilla said. She slipped her arm around Laura’s waist. “If you ask nicely.” 

Laura pulled her closer. “If I wear a corset on your re-un-birthday?” she whispered mere inches from her lips.

“Mmm.” Carmilla regarded her for a moment, lips parted, so close that Laura could feel her breath. Then she gracefully spun her out like a ballroom dancer.

“If you wear a chemise this time,” she said wryly. “I was getting chafed just looking at you, Liebling.”

“Hey!” Laura protested, but her face broke into a wide grin. She dropped Carmilla’s hand and marched back over to her.

“Tease,” she snapped.

“Slob,” Carmilla replied calmly.

“Pedant.”

“Cruel abandoner of innocent undergarments.”

“Beautiful.”

“Precious.”

“D-” The word was cut off by Carmilla’s lips, ever so slightly cool against Laura’s. She twined her fingers in Carmilla’s hair without breaking the kiss, and felt a gentle caress on the small of her back.

This, she reflected, was something she could do forever.

After several long seconds, they broke apart. Carmilla rested her forehead against Laura’s, eyes half-closed.

“So I guess we’re back where we started,” she sighed.

Laura bit her lip. “Not really,” she said at last. “I have a journalism degree and a year and a half of experience. And an ex-boss who’ll give me a good recommendation letter if he wants to keep his cartoon pony-oriented search history and door-facing computer screen quiet. And you…”

“I got to choose for a change.” Another dry laugh, tinged with bitterness. “The first choice I ever made for my own future, my own nature, and innocents would be damned if I chose the simpler path. Some choice.”

There was a moment of silence, broken only by their breathing. Then in a voice so quiet it was barely more than a whisper, “But I did choose. I, and no-one else.”

Laura touched Carmilla’s cheek. “You did. And I did today, and that day, and forever. Whatever choices we made- make –all that matters is we’re together.”

“And hey,” she continued, stepping back to meet Carmilla’s gaze once again, “the great thing about square one is, you can only go forward.”

A strange look crept into Carmilla’s eyes. Something like reverence. “Laura Hollis,” she said with a hint of disbelief, “you’re a miracle.”

The last golden rays of afternoon had since faded, leaving the cold, otherworldly blue of evening washed over the kitchen. Counters took on an icy tone; the metal sink and even the squat blue time machine-turned-mug became glacial and strange. It might have seemed off-putting to anyone but the couple in the middle of it all, who’d made it their own.

“And you might have to keep that cabernet Perry brought over last week away from me until after this whole unemployment thing really sinks in.”

“Happy to oblige, Cupcake.”


End file.
